Thing sketchbook, part 13

The Thing sketchbook took a trip to Comic-Con with me this year, and there are some great entries to show.  Here's the 13th installment of the Thing sketchbook!

Liz Robbins - Comic-Con International 2013

Liz Robbins is, along with husband Benn Robbins, part of the Robbins Studios creative team.  Liz worked on the Mangalicious Tick series for New England Comics a few years back, and I had the pleasure to spend some time with both Liz and Benn at this year's Comic-Con.  Always the opportunist, I believe that I've now grabbed sketches from everyone possible at the NEC booth and I'm happy to round out the rotation with Liz's entry.  Also, the Thing's cigar in this image kind of looks like a carrot.

Walter Simonson - Comic-Con International 2013

Walter Simonson is a comic legend, and even though he might be best known for his memorable, lengthy run on Thor for Marvel, he also had a brief but action-packed and all-around incredible run on the main Fantastic Four title around the mid-300s.  Walt has come back to comics in recent years and I couldn't be happier for it.  I saw him signing and sketching at IDW's booth on Saturday of the show and immediately approached him - but as luck would (or would not) have it, he was packing up to leave the area.  Interestingly enough, he was just heading back to his artist alley table where I soon met up with him again and landed this undeniably Simonson-esque Thing sketch.  I've always been a fan of Simonson's signature as well, how it forms a dinosaur with the letters of his name.  An extra treat!

Hannah Nance Partlow - Comic-Con International 2013

Hannah Nance Partlow is a comic book designer and letterer who, in recent months, has worked extensively for BOOM! Studios.  She also lettered the short "Zombie Shark" story for me, so when I found her at Comic-Con, I knew that I had to get some of her work in the sketchbook.  I asked her for a specific sketch, one of the new "Miss Thing" character from the Fraction/Allred FF title.  Miss Thing is a model girlfriend of Johnny Storm who...puts on the Thing suit.  She takes her place in the Thing sketchbook alongside the one image of the She-Thing!

Josh Shalek - Comic-Con International 2013

On the last day of Comic-Con 2012, I went around the small press section and bought a few books that caught my eye; one was a collection of strips from the webcomic "Welcome to Falling Rock National Park" by Josh Shalek.  In 2013, I found Shalek again and got him to add this unique sketch into the book.  Josh had a few new comics available at the time, including one that I bought called "Dancing with Jack Ketch" and another with an ancient Egyptian theme, which inspired this Pharaoh Thing.

Jimena Sanchez - Comic-Con International 2013

On the last day of Comic-Con, I found Jimena Sanchez and Lesley Vamos in the small press section and was impressed by their collaborations.  Sanchez is from Mexico and Vamos from Australia, making their partnership cross-continental in nature.  I bought a few things from them, including a book of postcards titled "From Me to You", and was fortunate enough to get sketches from both artists.  This first one is from Sanchez, and it features a cute, almost Charles Schultz-like Thing, complete with a "4" patch and light grey stones.  This is an understated image but one of my favorites.

More Thing sketches to come!  HOW EXCITING!

The Thing #31 original art by Ron Wilson!

For someone who is a pretty big fan of the Thing, it's taken me quite a while to get some original art from one of the character's solo titles.  Much of that is because both Marvel Two-in-One and the first Thing volume are between 25 and 35 years old, and the second volume ran a meager eight issues (seriously, what a revoltin' development THAT was).  Add this to the fact that some of those who contributed large swaths of material to the earlier series were named Byrne, Buscema, Perez and Kirby, and there aren't many pages floating around out there that I can afford.

I have been keeping an eye on one newcomer, though, for quite a while, and a few weeks ago the price dropped to a number that I was able to commit to, so I'm happy to say that I'm now the owner of an original page of artwork from the first solo Thing series, namely, issue #31, page 9, with art by Ron Wilson and Kim DeMulder, and letters by Jack Morelli.

As I've lamented before, the Thing (in both Two-in-One and his original series) has had some truly awful stories told about him.  There have been plenty of highlights as well, to be sure, but also a lot of fluff and other stories best left forgotten.  The final dozen or so issues of the Thing volume one fits into that category, as he returns from a strange trip to the Secret Wars planet only to wander around aimlessly for a time, joining a professional wrestling team and feeling depressed.  Also he wore boots, which I hated.

Issue #31 featured one of those aimless stories, where Ben hangs out with Sharon Ventura (later the She-Thing) as she tries to be an actress in a Hollywood production of a movie featuring the Devil Dinosaur.  Ben keeps mistaking movie props and situations for the real thing, and as a result he halts production several times due to his ill-timed heroics (at one point, he punches an animatronic Devil Dinosaur and everyone gives him heck for it).

This is, of course, not to say that I'm anything less than thrilled to own a page of Thing history.  This particular page has seen some wear, as its corners are clipped (which is the case with a lot of pages from this time) and there are a number of editorial notes written in the margins.  These notes and other corrections add a lot to the page, and it took me a minute to realize that most of them are simply corrections in the dialogue.  For instance, I thought that the following panel:

might be the result of a spat between the artist and the editor, before I realized that it was simply a note for the letterer, probably in an attempt to get Ben off the hook for his mishap with the Devil Dinosaur robot.  There are several of these corrections, and plenty of White Out, on the page.

Two of the panels were swapped out after the fact, and in 1985/86 that meant cutting the board, swapping the panels and taping it all back together.

The page came with a copy of the issue the art appeared in, which was a nice gesture.  I'll definitely bring the book with me if I ever happen to see Ron Wilson at a convention again.  He's a classic Thing artist, having worked on more issues of both Two-in-One and the Thing than any other artist, and even though this issue was toward the end of the book and chronicled a rather inauspicious period in the character's history, it's still pretty nifty.  I may never own one of the more high end pieces (check out this guy's collection! Yow!), but I'm more than pleased to finally have in my possession some original Thing art.